1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an optical disk drive assembly, more particularly to an optical disk drive assembly having a control panel mounted movably thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well known that notebook personal computers (PC) are equipped with optical disk drives, such as compact disk read-only-memory (CD-ROM) and digital versatile disk read-only-memory (DVD-ROM), for listening to music and watching video programs. However, the control keys for manipulation of the optical disk drives are liable to be depressed unintentionally when the optical disk drives are in use, thereby resulting in misoperation of the optical disk drives. In addition, the control keys of the optical drive disks occupy precious space on the keyboards of notebook PCs when the optical disk drives are not in use.
The object of the present invention is to provide an optical disk drive assembly in which the control keys for manipulation of an optical disk drive of the optical disk drive assembly will not be depressed unintentionally when the optical disk drive assembly is in use.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an optical disk drive assembly that will not occupy space on the keyboard of a notebook PC.
According to the present invention, the optical disk drive assembly comprises a hollow housing, an optical disk drive, and a control panel. The hollow housing has a bottom wall, two opposite side walls extending upwardly from two opposite sides of the bottom wall, a rear wall extending upwardly from a rear end of the bottom wall, and a front opening formed at a front end of the bottom wall and opposed to the rear wall. The optical disk drive is mounted inside the hollow housing. The optical disk drive is spaced apart from and is disposed above the bottom wall to define a clearance therebetween. The control panel is movably received in the clearance. The control panel has a front end, and a plurality of control keys disposed adjacent to the front end of the control panel and connected electrically to the optical disk drive for manipulation of the optical disk drive. The control panel is movable between a retracted position where the front end of the control panel is retracted into the hollow housing to conceal the control keys in the clearance under the optical disk drive, and an extended position where the front end of the control panel protrudes out of the front opening of the hollow housing to expose the control keys.
In the preferred embodiment, the optical disk drive assembly further has a spring member for biasing the control panel to move from the retracted position to the extended position, a locking mechanism for locking releaseably the control panel in the retracted position, and stop means for preventing the control panel from slipping out of the hollow housing when the control panel is moved to the extended position by the spring member.
Preferably, the side walls of the hollow housing have guide grooves formed adjacent to the bottom wall. The control panel has two guide rails that are received respectively in the guide grooves in order to guide movement of the control panel in a front-to-rear direction.